Paper felts or mats are formed from an aqueous slurry of kraft wood pulp, a predominant amount of finely divided inorganic fillers, a latex binder and other ingredients such as antioxidants, biocides and flocculants. The slurry is cast onto a fourdrinier machine or rotary drum machine from a head box where the water is largely removed, pressed to form a sheet which is then passed over drying cans, cooling cans, calendered and wound on a reel.
To form a flooring tile, the felt or mat is unwound from the reel, passed to a conveyor where the top layer of the mat is coated with a vinyl plastisol which is fluxed and cooled to form a vinyl coating which is then printed to form a design on the vinyl coating of the mat sheet. The design is then overcoated with a hot melt vinyl coating composition and cooled to form an abrasion-resistant top coating.
An object of this invention is to provide a novel polymeric binder for paper felts or mats.
Another object of this invention is to provide a method for making a novel polymeric binder.
Still another object of this invention to provide an improved paper felt or mat.
These and other objects and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent to those skilled in the art from the following description and examples.